A year long sting? 5 A.M raid? An undercover agent using aliases? The crime in question: unpasteurized milk.

It is absolutely absurd to know that these kinds of exaggerated situations actually take place. And even worse, that our tax dollars fund them.

It’s no secret that the FDA can be the least reliable source of information regarding health and nutrition. They’ve proven time and again to care little about the facts that prove holistic approaches cure diseases, and have made extreme efforts to criminalize most of those approaches. They’ve also made it abundantly clear that our personal freedoms are irrelevant to them.

Raw milk became a target of espionage when the FDA held a yearlong sting operation to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling raw milk to customers. “It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA.

The farm’s owner, Dan Allgyer, didn’t respond, but his customers were furious at what they said was government overreach. “I look at this as the FDA is in cahoots with the large milk producers,” said Karin Edgett, a D.C. resident who buys from Rainbow Acres. “I don’t want the FDA and my tax dollars to go shut down a farm that hasn’t had any complaints against it. They’re producing good food, and the consumers are extremely happy with it.”

Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, said undercover stings are not unheard of. “It happens quite a bit. It’s almost like they treat raw milk as crack. It’s happened in a number of states, and at the federal level,” he said.

It is blatantly wrong for the FDA to deny people their rights to buy raw milk. Raw milk has been consumed long before WWII and never was it considered harmful. On the contrary, it was considered a whole food. There are undeniable facts that prove pasteurized milk destroys part of the vitamin C in raw milk, kills beneficial lactic-acid bacteria which help ward off pathogens while encouraging the growth of harmful bacteria. The pasteurization also makes insoluble the major part of the calcium contained in raw milk, leading to bad teeth, nervous system problems, and rickets. And with the loss of phosphorus associated with calcium, bone and brain formation suffer serious setbacks.